SA immigration service 'a joke'

Illegal immigrants are deported by train

South Africa's immigration service is failing badly, an official says.

New Home Affairs Director General Barry Gilder said they were not coping well with illegal immigration, refugees or fraudulent citizenship.

He blamed widespread corruption, theft of equipment and staff shortages. Some offices lacked electricity, furniture, toilets and water.

"Compared to the immigration services of other countries, ours, to put it bluntly, is a joke," he said.

Speaking at a briefing in Pretoria five months after his appointment, Mr Gilder gave journalists a frank assessment of the department's failings.

In particular, he said that staff at all levels within the department were being targeted for recruitment by crime syndicates.

Paralysed

"Corruption is widespread and endemic in the sense that the department offers a service which the crooks need," the Pretoria News quoted him as saying.

"The National Intelligence Agency found that crime syndicates are targeting cleaners, baggage-handlers, security guards and immigration officials at Johannesburg International Airport in their strategy of people-smuggling."

The smuggling of people ranks second only to drug-smuggling, he said, with crime syndicates "working day in and day out".

Mr Gilder also said that the department had been paralysed by tensions between the previous director-general and the Minister of Home Affairs, Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

But he said that a new strategy was now beginning to make an impact on issues like ID cards and bribery.